


Remember those walls I built?

by mycanonnevercame



Series: made for each other [3]
Category: Daredevil (TV), The Punisher (TV 2017)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst with a Happy Ending, Domestic Fluff, F/M, Fix-It, Fluff, Grieving, Healing, Hurt/Comfort, I put on the warning for graphic depictions of violence but I don’t think it’s actually that bad?, It is not anywhere near as graphic or violent as in canon, Just figured better safe than sorry, Mostly Canon Compliant, Slow Burn, also Amy is a lesbian now, everyone can see it, everyone ships it, i don’t make the rules, so much love, soft, these tags are kind of all over the place sorry yall
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-16
Updated: 2020-07-16
Packaged: 2021-03-05 01:19:38
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,356
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25285990
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mycanonnevercame/pseuds/mycanonnevercame
Summary: A year in the life of Frank Castle, in which he finally gets that after Karen wanted for him.
Relationships: Frank Castle/Karen Page
Series: made for each other [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1704328
Comments: 14
Kudos: 99





	Remember those walls I built?

**Author's Note:**

> Hi friends! I finally succeeded in completing part 3 of made for each other!!!!! So here it is <3
> 
> Fair warning this fic has a VERY different tone to the others in this series. Frank has a lot of grieving to do and I wanted to give him space to do it. Which is not to say there is no fun in this fic! There are a few scenes that I personally think are hilarious. But it definitely has a heavier tone overall compared to the others I think.
> 
> Title is from Halo by Beyoncé. “Remember those walls I built? Baby, they’re tumbling down” <3
> 
> Anyway, thanks for reading <3

That first dinner goes about as well as can be expected, Frank thinks. He’s lucky Karen is even speaking to him — he’ll never stop being surprised when she lets him back in.

He still remembers her apartment from the last time he’d been there, and he brings flowers and a paper sack full of groceries. He cooks, and she helps, and for a while they make bland small talk. It’s strange, but not in a bad way. Just different.

Karen waits until they’re sitting at the table, wine glasses and plates full, before she brings up the elephant in the room.

“I was surprised you called me,” she says, her tone casual even if her posture is not. Frank freezes, caught by surprise even though he’d known they’d have to talk about it. He looks at her, at the tense line of her shoulders, at the white-knuckle grip she has on her fork.

“Yeah,” he says. He waits a beat for her to say something, but she’s staring determinedly at her plate. “Kid said I was being stupid,” he volunteers after a moment.

Karen looks up sharply. “Were you?”

He thinks about it, holding her gaze. Shakes his head slowly. “No,” he says softly. “Just cowardly.”

She frowns, but he doesn’t look away.

“And now?”

“Now...” He shrugs slightly. “Now, I’m trying to be brave.”

Karen’s shoulders slump, her expression softening. “So what does that mean for us?”

“I don’t know.” He shakes his head, thinking about his road trip, how even when he was pretending his hardest to be Pete, it never quite took. He could never tell anyone who he really was, and the one time he tried it had ended in disaster.

He doesn’t want that to happen with Karen. He’s spent years pushing her away to make sure that it never happens.

“I don’t really know how to do... normal stuff, anymore.”

“You weren’t doing normal stuff the past year?” Her tone is light, gentle. Curious.

“Tried, once or twice,” he says, not quite meeting her eye. “I always fuck it up. Probably shouldn’t surprise either of us. We both know exactly how messed up I am.”

Karen gives him a steady look. “Yes, we do.”

“Christ,” he says, suddenly angry with her. “Why do you want this? You’re smart and brave and you could have anyone, you shouldn’t settle for _this_.”

“I’m not settling for anything,” she snaps back. “I know who you are, and I thought you knew me, but I must’ve been wrong if you think I’d ever _settle_ for anyone.”

“Karen—“

“No, you don’t get to do this again,” she says, overriding his protest without ever raising her voice. “If you don’t want to be here, the door is right there.” She gestures over her shoulder, the movement sharp and precise, but he doesn’t look at the door. His eyes never leave her face. “You keep saying you don’t want this, that you don’t deserve it or shouldn’t have it, but I think we both know you’re full of shit. You want this. _You called me_ , and I was so goddamn relieved that you didn’t make me wait a year or more to hear from you again but I’m nearing the end of my rope here, Frank. I want this, too, but if you’re just going to jerk me around and leave again for some noble bullshit then you might as well just go now.”

He clenches his hands together under the table to try and stop the shaking. Swallows hard. “I don’t— I don’t know how,” he says, not quite meeting her gaze. “I don’t know how to do this.”

“Then just say that,” Karen says, voice softening slightly. “You don’t have to know everything right now. I’m not asking you to marry me tomorrow. I’m asking you to talk to me. I’m asking you to check in once in a while so I know you’re not dead. I’m asking you to be my friend.”

He blinks at her. “I am your friend,” he says, but it comes out like a question and Karen shakes her head.

“I’m your friend,” she says quietly. “But I don’t think you’re mine.”

It makes him angry, and he wants to tell her she’s wrong, but he can’t. She’s right. He’s a shitty friend. Friends are there for each other. Friends don’t disappear for months. Friends don’t let their friends wonder if they’re alive or dead.

He doesn’t even know what her life has been like the last few years, if she worked things out with Murdock, if she’s still working for that paper of hers. So he takes a deep breath, and asks.

“What about you? You been up to normal stuff?”

She snorts. “God, no. Have you met me?”

It breaks the tension, and they’re able to finish their dinner in relative peace. He helps her with the dishes after, but that’s about as much normality as he can handle for one night, so he doesn’t stay long. She walks him to the door, and he can’t quite look her in the eye as he shrugs into his jacket.

She hugs him.

It’s every bit as much of a gut punch as the first time she did it, almost a year ago. He slips one arm around her, then two. His eyes slide closed and he inhales slowly, steadying himself with the scent of Karen’s hair and the warmth of her breath on his skin.

“Take care,” he tells her when she lets go.

“You, too,” she says, closing the door softly behind him.

* * *

He knocks on Curt’s door.

It takes a couple minutes for Curt to answer. He looks at Frank for a moment and shakes his head.

“If you’re here to recruit me for your latest mission, I’m gonna have to take a rain check,” he says, and Frank laughs painfully.

“I’m actually here to uh...” he scrunches up his nose. “Apologize.”

Curt’s eyebrows go up, and he hesitates a moment, but then he opens the door wider and heads for the kitchen, leaving Frank to follow.

“Beer?” Curt holds out a cold can, and Frank takes it. He cracks it open and shrugs to hide his flinch at the sharp sound in the tense quiet of Curt’s kitchen. He takes a sip while Curt opens his own beer, stalling for time, trying not to fidget under his friend’s expectant gaze.

Curt just waits, patient as ever, and Frank sighs a little to notice the familiar detail.

“I’m sorry, Curt,” he starts, and it’s like the floodgates have opened.

They talk for hours. Frank apologizes properly, and promises to do better, and then he just listens. Curt talks about how all the shit with Frank and Billy seeped into his life, how he lost his girl, how he has nightmares about the man he killed. And Frank pays attention, in a way he knows he hasn’t in a long time.He doesn’t offer any advice — he isn’t exactly the poster child for handling grief and trauma well. But he thinks it’s okay. Curt seems to just need someone to talk to who he doesn’t need to keep secrets from.

They fall into a comfortable silence, sipping beers that have long since gone room temperature.

“Karen says I’m a shitty friend,” Frank says. Curt starts to frown but Frank shakes his head. “She’s right, Curt. Friendships are give and take, only I’ve been so wrapped up in my own grief, and, and rage, I haven’t done anything but take for years.”

Curt sighs. “I get it, man. But you have to learn how to move on, somehow.”

“I’m working on it,” Frank says. He hesitates a moment. “Thanks for talking to me.”

Curt smiles. “Thanks for _finally_ giving up the wallowing asshole routine.”

Frank rolls his eyes, but when Curt laughs, he joins in.

* * *

He’s still thinking about what Karen said a few days later. He wants to talk to her, to see her again, but he doesn’t know how to ask. But he doesn’t want to ghost her again, because she deserves better than he’s been giving her.

So he texts her.

_Alive_.

And then, because that doesn’t feel like enough:

_You?_

An agonizing five minutes pass, but then:

_Alive. Coffee?_

And, just like that, he has a routine with Karen. At least once a week, he texts her. _Alive. You?_ And she texts back. _Alive_. And they go to some diner or coffee shop and shoot the shit for an hour or so.

It feels fragile, for a while. Like it could all fall apart if he so much as breathes wrong.

It feels fragile, until it doesn’t.

In a surprisingly short time, it just feels normal. It’s just what they do — _alive, you? — Alive, coffee?_ It becomes comfortable, cozy, just the two of them talking and laughing, sitting across from each other in diner booths at all hours of the day and night.

Sometimes he brings Curt along, and watches as his two closest friends gang up on him about drinking too much coffee and not owning a television and liking kale. Sometimes they have philosophical discussions, and sometimes they make fun of each other’s taste in books (Karen hates Curt’s “dusty, depressing old tomes,” and Curt teases Karen for having “ridiculously eclectic” taste).

Sometimes Karen brings Nelson. He’s nervous at first, and he religiously calls Frank ‘Pete,’ but after about thirty minutes he relaxes enough to be able to joke around. Frank is surprised to find that he gets along well with his former lawyer. He’s smart and quick with a joke and refuses to back down in an argument even though he’s a little afraid of Frank. The days Nelson comes aren’t quite as easy as when Curt comes, but Frank enjoys them anyway.

Red never joins them. As far as Frank can tell, Murdock has never even been invited. He doesn’t ask Karen about it.

Sometimes Karen invites him to her place instead of going out, and they drink bourbon and talk about things that can’t be said over a Formica diner table. Things like why Karen left Vermont, and the full story of what happened with Russo, and the reason Frank hasn’t heard a peep out of Fisk since he returned to the city. They argue and cry and comfort each other, and Karen’s couch becomes a safe place for Frank. He’s starting to realize he has more of those than he thought.

* * *

He gets a job.

Curt knows a guy who knows a guy who’s expanding his handyman business and needs someone reliable. Frank is secretly a little choked up that Curt would nominate him as ‘someone reliable’ but he tries not to let it show. He goes back to being Pete, and it feels less like a lie this time because the people who matter know who he is.

Marcus Anderson is a vet, too, and he doesn’t press when Frank is vague about his service record. His business is called Handy-Persons, “in case we ever get any employees who aren’t men,” and the marketing slogan is “We’re good with our hands,” which makes Frank wrinkle his nose. Marcus thinks it’s hilarious.

The hours are irregular at first, but Frank doesn’t mind. He likes fixing things. It’s different than his old construction job. He goes home tired, but not exhausted. He doesn’t numb himself out with physical labor anymore, and he finds that he doesn’t need to. Not every day. On the hard days, he goes for a run, or sometimes to the gym to lift weights or beat on a punching bag for a while.

It’s just him and Marcus for a couple months. Sometimes they work the same jobs, but most of the time Frank flies solo, fixing people’s garbage disposals and boilers and locks. His favorite calls are the ones where the clients have pets. Most people are happy to let their gruff handyman play with their dogs or pet their cats for a few minutes.

When they get busy enough, Marcus hires another handyperson. She introduces herself as Jessica, and it takes Frank weeks to realize who she is.

“I’m here to do the heavy lifting,” she says on her first day, so deadpan that he’s not sure if she’s joking, and Marcus gives Frank a smirk like they’re both in on a secret.

Later the same day, she fixes Frank with a pointed look.

“Are you retired?”

He doesn’t mistake her meaning. She knows who he is. Frank only hesitates a moment before answering.

“Yeah,” is all he says. Jessica studies him a moment longer before nodding sharply. She doesn’t bring up his past again.

She’s profane and so cranky that Frank feels jovial by comparison. She swears frequently and fluently, and always has dark circles under her eyes like she hasn’t slept in weeks. He feels like he should know who she is but he can’t quite place her. Until the day the three of them are working a job together and she lifts an air conditioning unit — by herself. She smirks at the dumbfounded look on Frank’s face, and Marcus apologizes later.

“I thought you knew who she was,” he says, and Frank shakes his head slowly. He’s just realizing that Marcus knows exactly who he is, probably has known from the beginning.

“I was out of the city a lot the last couple years,” Frank offers as an explanation, and adds “I like her,” so Marcus will stop looking so worried. They’re an odd little group, but they work well together, and it’s nice not to have to hide who he is all the time.

* * *

Winter falls over the city, washing the color out of everything and driving a chill into Frank’s bones. It makes his joints stiff and his old wounds ache. Karen trades her pencil skirts for skinny jeans and her flowy blouses for thick sweaters, and Frank pretends not to notice. He starts wearing plaid flannels in shades of blue and green and red, lets his hair grow out and his beard fill in, and Karen doesn’t hide her interest in the changes.

“You look like a lumberjack,” she says, tweaking his beard. They’re crammed together at a tiny table in the corner of her favorite café. The place is packed with students just returned from their holiday trips home, their bright chatter contrasting sharply with the focused bustle of the career New Yorkers. She has a bunch of papers spread out in front of her, research for her latest case that he is resolutely ignoring, and their coffee cups are precariously nestled in the only two free spots on the table. She’s on her third black eye and Frank, who has always considered himself a serious coffee drinker, is seriously considering cutting her off.

“You look like a private eye,” he snarks back, flicking her braid over her shoulder. She’s wearing skinny jeans and has her long black trench coat draped over the back of her chair, file folders and the strap of her camera peeking out of her bag.

“I _am_ a private eye.”

He uses the pretense of taking a sip of coffee to hide his smile. “Well, maybe I’m going to be a lumberjack,” he says, shrugging. Something flickers in Karen’s expression, too fast to decipher, something that almost looks like sadness. He blinks and she’s smiling again, telling him he could do worse for career choices.

“I’m mostly just glad you didn’t call me a hipster again,” he confesses.

“I’d still like to see you with a man bun one of these days,” she teases, and he huffs a laugh.

“Keep dreaming, ma’am.”

* * *

He thinks about the Liebermans sometimes, wonders how they’re doing. If Leo is still into engineering and books, if Zach stopped acting out and tried out for sports, if Sarah and David are driving each other crazy. He thinks about reaching out, but it never seems like the right thing to do, so he always puts it off.

The decision is made for him one day when he pulls up to a nice house on a service call and Sarah answers the door. They both stand there blinking at each other for several seconds. Sarah recovers first, her face transitioning from surprise to exasperation.

“You better be here to fix my furnace,” she says, hands on her hips. Frank smiles a little awkwardly, but she’s already turning into the house, gesturing for him to follow. The house is nice, bright and comfortable, though a little chilly.

“I guess now I know why David was so insistent on switching maintenance companies,” Sarah is saying. She raises her voice a moment later, yelling up the stairs for David.

“I guess he’s been ah, keeping tabs?”

She snorts. “He’s a busybody.” She turns to look at Frank, taking in the beard and the hair and the Handy-Persons branded hoodie. “You look like Pete again,” she says.

“Technically, I am Pete again,” he says. He’s saved from having to come up with anything else to say by David’s arrival. He thunders down the stairs with all the grace of a rampaging herd of elephants.

“Frank!” He stumbles to a stop, grinning like he’s just won the lottery. “I wasn’t sure this would actually work, but here you are!”

“Is the furnace actually broken or have I been freezing my ass off all day for a ruse?”

David jumps guiltily at Sarah’s question, and she throws up her hands. “Turn it back on!”

“I have to charge you for the service call anyway,” Frank says apologetically. “So you might as well let me do it.”

David perks up at that and leads Frank into the basement, Sarah trailing along behind them. He checks out their furnace and gets it turned back on, and David and Sarah give him a jumbled overview of their lives since he last saw them, more than a year ago. They’d moved the previous summer, with the idea that it would give the kids a fresh start at a new school. David has been doing freelance security consulting, mostly for corporations, but he’s done a few jobs for Madani.

“She offered me a job last year,” Frank mentions.

“She complains about you saying no every time I talk to her,” David says. “But you seem to have, ah— gotten out of the business, so to speak?”

“Yeah, I’m... retired, I guess.” He shrugs. “That’s what Karen calls it anyway.” David looks sharply at him and he winces internally at the slip.

“Karen?” David says, pouncing on the name. “Karen _Page?_ ”

Frank sighs. “Yes, Karen Page.” He holds up his hands before David can get carried away. “We’re just friends.”

“You’re hopeless,” David says, rolling his eyes. Frank starts to growl something back but Sarah cuts them both off before they can really get going.

“Okay, boys, that’s enough,” she says in her mom voice. She turns to Frank. “Will you come for dinner this weekend? The kids would love to see you. We’ve all missed you.”

He hesitates only a moment before nodding. “Yeah, okay. I’ve, uh— I’ve missed you, too.”

Sarah gets his phone number, both of them pretending like David doesn’t already have it, which he definitely does — even if Frank had been uncertain of that, which he wasn’t, David’s eye roll at the two of them bent over Sarah’s phone, entering Frank’s contact info, gives it away.

He shows up for dinner on Saturday, on time and with a bottle of rosé in hand, and it’s a little awkward, but overall he enjoys himself. Leo is a little wary at first, but he finds a quiet moment to talk to her one on one, and his apology goes a long way toward easing things between them. Zach seems to take his reappearance in stride, but Frank catches him keeping a close eye anytime Frank gets up, like he thinks Frank is about to disappear again. The only thing that will really fix his friendship with this family is time. He has to show up, and show them that he isn’t going to just vanish again.

He returns again a few weeks later, and then a couple weeks after that, and then Sarah insists he bring Karen. He puts her off for a couple weeks, but then he starts to feel paranoid that David will use his powers for evil and find Karen’s number and invite her without Frank’s help, so he relents. Karen agrees readily, and he picks her up in the murder van — her name for it, not his — and drives to the Liebermans with mounting trepidation.

The results are something of a mixed bag, at least for Frank. On one hand, the Liebermans are thrilled to meet Karen and, unsurprisingly, they all end up adoring her. On the other hand, David is completely unsubtle, and Frank spends half the evening glaring daggers at him behind Karen’s back, not that it does much good.

* * *

Amy comes home, sporting an adorable pixie haircut and an impressive tan. She walks into his tiny apartment and announces that she will lower herself to stay there for exactly one night, and then they’re going apartment hunting. He humors her, because privately he knows she’s right, the place is a dump, and he’s been considering moving anyway.

She tells him all about diving school and all the friends she’s made. His old buddy from the corps has been looking out for her, and she lives in a tiny cabin on the beach with two other girls.

“I have not missed northern winters,” she says, bumping her shoulder into his before dragging him out to a restaurant for dinner.

She sleeps on his couch that night and the next morning, true to her word, she hunts up apartment listings that she deems acceptable and drags him all over the city to find one he likes. He finally picks a place in the heart of Hell’s Kitchen. It’s small, but the bathroom and kitchen have both been updated in the last few years, and the fire escape is big enough for two people to sit out on when the weather is nice. It’s also closer to Karen’s place, but he doesn’t mention that to Amy. She’d read into it too much.

He moves in that weekend, and is somehow unsurprised when both Curt and Karen show up to help without him ever calling them. Between the four of them, it only takes a few hours to move all of his stuff into his new place. He doesn’t have much. Amy is making him get a new couch and bedroom set, and beyond that all he owns are a couple of bookshelves filled with secondhand books and a good coffee maker and some dishes. The new place has an actual kitchen and he’ll get to kit out the place with new pans and knives and dishes. He almost feels giddy at the thought of being able to cook actual meals, rather than making do with his ancient hot plate.

Curt and Amy stay at the new apartment to arrange things to their liking, and Karen drags Frank off to IKEA to buy a replacement couch and bed. It turns out that Frank hates IKEA. It’s big and set up like the home goods labyrinth from hell and full of people walking as slowly as humanly possible. But he finds a big blue couch he likes, and a plain bed frame with matching dressers and end tables that he can stain a nice dark walnut, and at some point Karen takes his hand so they don’t get separated in the crowds and he decides IKEA might not be so bad after all.

Somehow everything fits in the back of the old van he’s still driving.

“I’m starving,” Karen announces when they’re halfway back to his place, so he has her call in a pizza order and they stop and pick it up along with some beer and sodas. He calls Curt from the loading zone outside his building and he and Amy come down to help them drag everything upstairs. They eat standing up around the kitchen island and Amy tries to sneak a beer and complains loudly when she’s caught.

“I’m not going to contribute to the delinquency of a minor,” Frank tells her, and laughs at the incredulity on her face. “Any more than I already have,” he amends, and she rolls her eyes with perfect teenaged disgust.

When they’ve all finished eating they stand around surveying the flat pack boxes he and Karen brought home.

“Ugh, no thanks,” Amy says. “I’m out of here, you have fun with this.” She gathers her bag and her coat and kisses Frank on the cheek.

“Are you seriously abandoning me now?” The look he gives her is of the deepest betrayal.

“Yup!” She heads for the door, completely unapologetic, and Curt says, “wait for me,” and follows her out.

“Have fun!” He calls over his shoulder, leaving Frank to stand there, blinking in shocked indignation. Karen laughs at his reaction.

“I guess you’re on your way out, too?” He asks, trying not to look too hopeful that she’ll stay.

“Me, abandon you in your time of need?” She gives him a _get real_ look. “Have I ever done that to you?”

“No,” he says, smiling sheepishly, and grabs her in a hug that he hopes conveys his gratitude and affection for her. She laughs in his arms and playfully tugs his beard when he pulls away.

They put the bed together first so he’ll have somewhere to sleep that night, then the couch, and then they start on the rest of the bedroom furniture. They put together about half of it before giving up around midnight. Frank grabs a couple of beers from the fridge and he and Karen sit against the foot of his bed to drink them, letting the fatigue of a long day’s work wash over them. Karen rests her head on Frank’s shoulder and sleepily asks him to walk her home.

“It’s fucking freezing out there,” he protests.

“So you’re going to make me walk home in the cold by myself?”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” he says. “I’m going to offer you my couch so neither of us has to freeze.”

She’s quiet for a moment and he thinks maybe he’s overstepped, but then she snuggles closer and says that he’s a man of great wisdom and he laughs and kisses the top of her head.

* * *

Spring comes, and it’s an especially difficult time for Frank.

The weather turns, grows more hopeful, the days getting longer and warmer and brighter — but all that means is that Frank is that much closer to the anniversary of when his life became a living hell. He grows quieter, more irritable, the closer he gets to that date in April. It doesn’t help that a gang war has broken out in Hell’s Kitchen. For the first time in almost six months, Frank feels the Punisher wake up and test his bonds.

He spends more time in the gym, beating the hell out of the punching bag and lifting weights, but it starts to feel less like a healthy coping mechanism and more like training. He switches to running, and it tires him out but doesn’t quiet the rage simmering in his blood.

He picks up his guitar again. Practices until his fingers bleed, which makes Karen scold him. She undermines the message by asking him to play for her. He tells her about how he met Maria, and she laughs with him at the story.

He starts going to Curt’s support group again, and the first couple times he thinks maybe it’s a mistake, but Curt talks him into sticking it out a while longer. It does help, even if the others’ problems aren’t anything like his own. He doesn’t stop going.

He lets Red take care of the gang war. It isn’t as hard to do as it would’ve been six months ago.

* * *

Karen starts calling him at weird hours. His phone buzzes in the middle of the night and he answers quickly because it’s one of those nights where he can’t keep the nightmares at bay long enough to really get some rest. When he sees Karen’s number paired with the late hour, he goes on red alert.

“Karen?”

“Hey, I’m sorry to call so late—“

“What’s wrong? Are you okay?” He’s already getting out of bed, fumbling for a pair of pants, mentally plotting the fastest route to her apartment.

“Frank, no, I’m fine, I didn’t mean to scare you,” she says. He can hear the apology in her voice and he sits down heavily on the edge of his bed. She sighs, and he closes his eyes to focus on her better.

“I just— it seems silly now, but I had a nightmare and I just wanted to talk to you,” she says. He can imagine her, hair mussed from sleep, dark smudges under her eyes from the restless night, curled up around her phone.

“It’s not silly,” he tells her, climbing back into bed. “You can always call me when you’re scared, Karen. You can call me anytime.”

“Okay.” They’re both quiet for a moment, listening to each other breathe. “Thank you,” she murmurs.

They talk for a few minutes, long enough that they both relax and their responses grow increasingly far apart.

“Go to sleep, sweetheart,” Frank finally mumbles.

“Goodnight, Frank,” Karen whispers, and they hang up.

He doesn’t have any more nightmares that night.

They add it to their routine, each calling the other whenever they can’t sleep. It isn’t a cure-all; some nights he’s able to slip into a dreamless sleep after a call to Karen, and others the nightmares are still there, waiting for him. But it helps, and Karen tells him it helps her, too, so they keep doing it.

* * *

He visits his family’s graves on the anniversary, and Karen and Curt both offer to come with him. He declines, but their unending support means more to him than he can say.

It’s a gloriously beautiful spring day, warm and sunny. He’s been to the cemetery a few times, for the kids’ birthdays and his wedding anniversary, so he knows the way by heart now. He has flowers for Maria, small toys for the kids. He sits by their headstones and talks to them, catching them up on his life since the last time he visited. He tells them about Curt’s new girlfriend, and how annoyed Karen is that her favorite diner changed their pancake recipe, and about the jar full of seashells Amy mailed him that he didn’t know what to do with until she explained they were for decoration, duh. He talks a little about work, updates them on all the trouble Jessica’s gotten up to with Marcus, and shares the Liebermans’ latest shenanigans — Leo built a robotic dinosaur for a school competition that Frank knew Lisa would’ve loved, and Sarah went on a DIY kick that has invaded not only her own life but that of everyone she knows — Frank’s own apartment has a fresh collection of handmade throw pillows and woven wall-hangings.

When he’s done he just sits with them for a while, missing them so much he aches.

He drives home on autopilot, not really thinking about where he’s going. It’s not until he’s parked and is getting out of the van that he realizes he’s outside Karen’s building instead of his own. He almost turns around to get back in the van, but then he stops. He wants to see Karen, and she’d told him to let her know if he needed anything. He doesn’t know if she’s home, but he’s already here. So he heads up to her place and knocks.

She answers quickly and barely closes the door before she’s wrapping him in a hug.

“Hey,” he says, relaxing into her with a sigh.

“Should I even ask how you are?” Her voice is gentle, and he smiles tiredly, giving her a squeeze before pulling away.

“I’m okay,” he says truthfully. “Better than I thought I’d be.”

They end up in her kitchen. She’d been about to start making lasagna for dinner, so he rolls up his sleeves and helps. He tells her about the cemetery, and how he’s handling the anniversary, and she shares a little more of her own experiences with the grieving process. It helps to have something to do with his hands while they talk.

When the lasagna is in the oven, Frank starts to clean up, quietly insisting on doing it himself when Karen tries to help.

“Let me, please,” he says, gently maneuvering her onto a stool at the island, and she relents with only a little grumbling as he pours her a glass of wine.

“You never let me take care of you,” she complains, and he stares at her, dumbfounded.

“All you’ve done for _years_ is take care of me,” he says, wondering how she can be so wrong. “Would it kill you to let me reciprocate?”

She blinks at him. “Oh,” she says. “Um, I guess not?” Frank nods once, satisfied, and tucks her hair behind her ear, pushes her wineglass a little closer to her, and goes about setting her kitchen to rights. He takes his time, and it’s almost meditative. Karen drinks her wine, and directs him when he doesn’t know where she keeps something, and when the casserole is done she lets him help her set the table.

Amy calls later when they’re settled on the couch, something mindless playing quietly on the tv. He puts her on speaker so Karen can talk to her, too, and they all catch up.

“Did you give it to him yet?” Amy asks toward the end of the call. Karen throws a glance at Frank, caught, and he raises his eyebrows at her.

“Not yet,” Karen says. “Thanks for giving it away.”

“You’re welcome,” Amy sings out cheerfully, completely unapologetic. “Call me back later and tell me his reaction,” she says, sending them her love before hanging up.

“Should I be worried?” He’s been watching Karen since Amy spilled the beans, and she’s been a little shifty — highly unusual to witness on the most honest and open person he knows.

“No?”

“Not reassuring, Karen,” he says. He’s smiling though — he trusts her.

She sighs and stands up, signaling that he should stay where he is with a hand on his shoulder and disappearing into her bedroom. She’s only gone a moment, returning with a large sky blue book clutched nervously to her chest.

“I was going to give this to you on a less emotionally fraught day, but maybe Amy has the right idea.” She places the book carefully in his lap. It says _Castle_ on the front in curling gilded script, and he opens it up curiously.

It’s a photo album. The first page has a pristine print of the photo he’s been carrying around for years now, and it knocks all the air from Frank’s lungs. He stares at it for a long moment. Turns the page: little baby Lisa looks up at him; a smiling Maria in a hospital bed; a younger, happier Frank, holding his baby girl. Page after page of photos he’d long thought destroyed: toddler Lisa — newborn Frankie — Maria — Maria, beautiful and smiling, dressed up for church and down for the park, dancing and making faces and half asleep on the couch — Frankie under the piano bench — Lisa in her dinosaur costume, roaring ferociously.

“Where did you get these?” His voice is a soft rasp, all he can manage around the lump in his throat.

“David and Amy helped me,” Karen says quietly. “I found Maria’s old Facebook account, and Amy tracked down her Instagram, and David hacked in so we could access her photos.”

He’s quiet for a long time, slowly paging through the book, the images blurring as he blinks back tears. There are photos he’s never seen before, and photos he remembers taking himself, and all of them are filled with the smiling faces of his family. When he finally manages to look up at Karen, she’s chewing on her lip nervously.

“I’m sorry,” she says before he can speak.

“What’ve you got to be sorry for?” He reaches blindly for her hand, lets the solid pressure of her fingers on his steady him. She breathes an incredulous laugh.

“Um, I don’t know? Massively invading your privacy, for starters?”

“You broke into my house before you met me,” he points out, and watches with interest as she blushes.

“It’s just— I know it’s a lot to take in,” she says. “You’ve had a hard spring, and I didn’t want to add to it.”

Frank shakes his head, looking down at the album open in his lap. He brushes his fingers reverently over the images of his family, his heart feeling simultaneously shattered and full — so full.

“Thank you,” he whispers. It’s all he can say. “Thank you.”

He goes home late, and sets the photo album gently on his coffee table where he’ll see it every day. His dreams that night are full of love: Maria and the kids, Curt and Amy and the Liebermans.

Karen.

* * *

Summer turns the city into a sticky, sweaty urban swamp. Frank gets a treadmill so he can run without feeling like he’s trying to breathe boiling water on the days when he doesn’t feel like getting up before the sun. Karen spends more time at his apartment than hers, because his has central air and her bedroom window unit just isn’t cutting it. He gets one of those tiny charcoal grills, the only way he’s able to have a grill in an apartment without a balcony, and makes burgers and chicken and pork chops sitting cross-legged on his fire escape while Karen makes salads and cold lemonade in the kitchen.

Amy comes for another visit, this time with a girlfriend in tow. Marianne is small and curvy, her freckled skin and flaming hair contrasting adorably with Amy’s deep tan and sun-streaked brown hair. She’s quietly snarky and wears even more florals than Karen. They sleep on an air mattress in Frank’s living room and drag him to hipster bars and touristy photo ops across the city during the day. Karen comes over for dinner a couple nights, and Frank is quietly mortified to overhear Marianne whisper to Amy, “you’re right, they’re _totally_ married.” Before they leave, Amy wrests a promise that Frank _and Karen_ will come visit them soon.

* * *

He gets a dog.

He’s on his way to Karen’s for dinner. It’s the first day in weeks that hasn’t made Frank feel like he’s being cooked alive just by stepping outside, and he’s got a paper bag full of groceries in his arms. No matter how many times he brings food to cook at Karen’s place, her fridge never seems to get any less empty.

He almost doesn’t hear the dog. He’s passing an alley, and there’s a scrabbling sound, but he doesn’t pay it any mind — probably just a rat anyway. He’s almost at the other side of the alley when there’s a low, heartrending whine that jolts him out of his thoughts and makes him stop in his tracks.

At this time of the evening, the shadows are harsh and dark, and it takes him a moment for his eyes to adjust enough to locate the source of the whine. He takes a few steps into the alley, listening hard and scanning for any hint of movement. The whine repeats, and this time he sees where it came from. A small dog is struggling to escape a box that’s been left by the dumpster. The box had been taped shut, and the thick cardboard is too strong for the dog — puppy, actually — to break through.

Frank puts down his groceries and hurries over to help, trying to rein in his fury at the casual cruelty of people who get pets they aren’t ready for.

“I gotcha,” he says, keeping his voice low and calm as he crouches down. The puppy whines again, struggling harder against the box, and Frank freezes, holding his hands out, palms open. It has its head and one front leg out and is stuck in what looks like an extremely uncomfortable position.

“Hey, sweetheart,” Frank croons, easing closer. “Let’s get you outta there, yeah?”

It takes a while, but eventually he’s able to get close enough to carefully rip the box open and extricate the struggling dog. The puppy flops out in a pile of limbs and scrambles to its feet, a black and white spotted ball of fur. Frank puts his arm out to keep it from scampering off, but he didn’t need to worry. It practically leaps into his arms and he’s pissed all over again because this is the friendliest puppy he’s ever met, and some _asshole_ shut it in a box and dumped it in the trash. There’s a snarl of rage in his chest and it takes several deep breaths to loosen it enough to think around.

“How’d you like to come meet a badass private eye?” Frank asks, transferring the squirmy puppy into one arm and gathering his groceries with the other. The dog yips and tries to lick Frank’s face, and he chuckles. It takes him a little longer to make the rest of the short walk to Karen’s place, because the puppy keeps wiggling and he almost drops it a few times.

The look on Karen’s face when she opens her door is priceless.

“I was starting to worry you were standing me up,” she says lightly, taking the puppy out of his arms like it’s totally normal for him to show up at her door with a dog. The puppy goes wild, licking every bit of Karen it can get to and yipping joyfully. _Same_ , Frank thinks, trying to shove down the warm feeling he always gets in his chest when he’s around Karen. He follows her into the apartment, closing the door behind him and kicking off his boots without really thinking about it, too busy watching Karen walk away with his dog. She’s wearing a tiny pair of shorts and a tank top, her hair in a messy knot on the top of her head as a concession to the heat.

“You need a bath,” she’s crooning at the puppy, smiling as she lets it lick her chin. “Who’s a stinky baby?” She turns the water on in the kitchen sink, apparently serious about the bath.

“Found it on my way over,” Frank says, setting the groceries on the counter. “Some waste of air shut it in a box and dumped it. I couldn’t just leave it there.”

“Of course not,” Karen agrees, looking offended by the very notion. “Here.” She hands him the puppy and disappears for a minute, coming back with a pile of towels. By now there are a few inches of warm water in the sink, and she trades him the towels for the puppy and plops it gently in the water.

“I don’t suppose you’ve named her?” Karen asks while the puppy splashes in the water.

“Her?”

She grins at him over her shoulder. “Did you not even realize you found a girl dog? Or is her name ‘Her?’”

He rolls his eyes back at her. “Didn’t exactly stop to give her a physical,” he says. “And no, I haven’t named her.”

“Not planning on keeping her?” Karen doesn’t look at him while she waits for his answer. She pulls the plug in the sink and turns the faucet back on so she can rinse the pup.

“Guess I hadn’t thought that far ahead,” Frank says, though he’s been wanting a dog for a while now. The puppy is hopping about, yipping and growling playfully. “Why, you want her?” He asks the question offhandedly, but one look at the longing on Karen’s face and he has his answer.

The puppy chooses that moment to shake itself, spraying water everywhere.

“Oh, shit,” Frank grunts as Karen gives a little shriek and jumps back, laughing. She shuts off the water quickly and they grab the towels. Frank gathers the puppy up in one, drying her off while Karen dabs at the wet spots on her face and shirt.

“Guess I better change,” she mutters after a moment, giving up on the shirt. Frank finishes toweling off the puppy and sets her down on the floor, where she proceeds to scamper around, sniffing things.

“Frank, you’re drenched.”

He glances down at his tshirt, one side of which is clinging wetly to his skin. Karen is suppressing a smile when he looks up at her.

“Laughing at my misfortune, unbelievable,” he grumbles, hiding his own smile. “You know this is your fault?”

Her mouth falls open. “My fault?”

“You just _had_ to give the dog a bath,” he says, rolling his eyes for effect.

“She smelled terrible!” Karen sputters. “And this is actually _your_ fault for finding her in the first place!”

He gives up and grins at her. She swats him with her towel and he laughs, a real, deep belly laugh that he feels all the way to his toes.

“Take it off, I’ll throw it in the drier,” Karen says, her voice crisp enough that he’d almost think she’s unaffected by all this, except that she’s also blushing, the color spreading across her cheeks and all the way down her chest. He turns away to hide his smile, shrugging out of his shirt without a word.

She takes it and disappears into her bedroom to change into her own dry clothes, and he gets started on dinner. By the time Karen comes back out, wearing a loose tshirt in place of the tank top, he’s wearing an apron that has a cartoon avocado saying “let’s guac and roll” over his bare chest and heating up a pan on her stove. He’s already started water boiling for the pasta, plus a small pot to make the puppy some rice to eat until he can get some dog food.

“You like carbonara?” She nods, poking through his bag of groceries curiously.

He makes dinner, and Karen sits on the counter close by, sneaking little bites of the veggies he chops up for their salad and the bacon that’s going in the pasta. She flicks him on the shoulder when he’s being annoying, which makes him laugh. He keeps half an eye on the puppy and moves the finished rice to a plate to cool. Karen grabs the bottle of wine he brought and pops it open to breathe, and he snorts.

“Not sure it’s fancy enough for that to be necessary,” he mutters.

“Yeah, right,” she says. “This is good wine, don’t be modest.” Frank just smiles. “So, are you keeping her?” He doesn’t miss the hope in Karen’s voice, and gives the puppy a considering look, as if he hasn’t already made up his mind.

“Yeah, I think so,” he says. “Gonna need some puppy supplies, want to go to the pet store later?” Karen nods, grinning at him. They spend dinner trying to decide on a name for the dog. Frank keeps suggesting names like Max and Spot to Karen’s increasing exasperation, while she suggests names like Sabriel and Deviana and Lyra, which are apparently names from some of her favorite books. At some point they stop being serious and start suggesting the worst possible names they can think of, which devolves pretty quickly.

“Dog,” Frank suggests, and Karen falls back into the cushions dramatically. They’ve moved to the couch with the nearly-empty wine bottle.

“Dog?” She demands. “ _Dog?_ ” Her disgust is marred somewhat by her helpless laughter.

“Call a spade a spade,” Frank says.

“Hang on, hang on, I’ve got it,” Karen says, waving her arms and sitting up for dramatic effect. She waits a beat to make sure he’s really paying attention before pronouncing her latest offering with deadly enunciation. “ _Iphigenia_.”

Frank stares at her. “Bless you?” She dissolves into giggles.

“No, it’s a name,” she says when she can breathe again. “From Greek mythology. Iphigenia was a princess or something.”

“Huh,” Frank says, frowning skeptically. “Iphigenia.”

Karen leans close to whisper in his ear. “Only I didn’t get it from Greek mythology, I got it from a romance novel,” she confesses. He huffs a laugh and she flicks him on the shoulder.

“Iphigenia,” she muses. “That’s it, thats the name.”

Frank groans, slouching down into the couch some more. “That is an awful name.”

“I like it,” Karen declares.

“You’re drunk.”

“I’m _not_.”

“You can’t name my dog Iphigenia Castiglione, that’s just mean.”

“Oh my god,” she gasps, collapsing against him in hysterical laughter. “Iphigenia Castiglione,” she sings. “It’s _beautiful_.”

“Christ,” Frank says, sighing fondly. “Come on, drunky, you can walk it off at the pet store.”

* * *

Much to Frank’s chagrin (and very, very secret amusement), the name sticks.

Or, it doesn’t so much stick as it is forcibly glued on by Karen’s cheerful bullheadedness. At the pet store she tipsily purchases a hot pink collar and an ID tag shaped like a heart. She has to google the romance novel she got the name from because she can’t remember how to spell it, and she breaks into gleeful giggles when the store employee who helps them gives her a horrified look when she tells him what name she wants on the tag.

In the car on the way home, she holds Iphigenia in her lap and very seriously explains to her that she has a name now and not to listen to her father because it’s a very _good_ name. Frank rolls his eyes and groans theatrically and falls that much more in love with her. He takes the puppy and Karen back to his place to unload the van-load of dog paraphernalia he’s amassed in an alarmingly short time, and Karen falls asleep on his couch while he puts together the dog crate. He leaves a glass of water and some aspirin on the coffee table for her, and in the morning he makes her pancakes and coffee. They take Iphigenia for a walk and Frank holds on tight when Karen slips her hand into his.

He calls the dog Iffy most of the time, and takes her along on his runs in the early mornings when it’s still dark outside and the temperature is bearable, carrying her when she gets tired until she grows too big to be carried anymore. When autumn comes and the weather cools off, they forego the air-conditioned van in favor of walking together to Karen’s apartment. Iffy is a big hit at Curt’s support group, and Amy makes Frank video call her multiple times a week so she can see the dog. David alternates between cursing the day Frank found Iffy because now his kids will not stop harassing him about getting a dog, and spending all his time rolling around on the floor with the puppy whenever she visits.

* * *

It’s nearly Thanksgiving before Frank kisses Karen for the first time.

It’s been a little more than a year since he took the kid’s advice and called Karen instead of losing himself in a new war. He spends most of his time outside of work with her, the rest with the Liebermans or Curt or some combination thereof. He has a surprisingly busy social life for someone who closed himself off for so long.

Karen is over for dinner and a movie ( _The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society_ — his pick, much to Karen’s surprise, but he’d read the book on her suggestion so now he wants to see how the adaptation compares), and she’s talked him into taking the night off from cooking and getting takeout instead.

Now she doesn’t want to go pick it up. Iffy is sleeping in a soft pile across her lap, and for once the sad puppy eyes are coming from Karen instead of the actual puppy.

“You wouldn’t want me to disturb this sweet baby, would you?” Her tone implies that doing so would be his worst crime yet.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Frank says, but he’s already shoving his feet into his shoes. He squeezes Karen’s shoulder as he passes behind the couch on his way to the door. The Thai place is just down the block. “I’ll be back in fifteen minutes,” he calls over his shoulder.

He gets mugged.

Mugged. Frank Castle, the Punisher, the scourge of criminals everywhere, gets mugged practically in his own back yard. Two men jump him as he’s passing by an alley on his way home, the bag of takeout containers in his hand. They have the element of surprise on their side, but he’s not so retired that a couple of street thugs can mug him successfully.

One gets a lucky hit in, and Frank feels his nose crunch as blood pours down his chin, and okay, now he’s mad. This is his favorite shirt, and he thought he was done getting blood on his clothes. He drops the food and kicks the first assailant in the chest, sending him tumbling. The second grabs him from behind, so Frank throws his head back, breaking the other man’s nose. He’s rewarded with a curse and a loosened grip, and he twists, slamming his elbow into the man’s side and slipping out of his grasp. The first man rushes him again and Frank grabs his shirt, using his momentum against him and swinging him into his accomplice. The two collapse in a dazed heap, one on top of the other, and Frank plants his foot on the chest of the top man. He pulls a gun out of the back of his waistband and cocks it, leveling it at them.

“Don’t fucking move,” he says, his voice a snarl of anger. He sees a flash of red out of the corner of his eye and sighs internally.

“Hello, Frank,” the Devil says calmly. One of the men looks from Frank’s bloody face to the man standing behind him, mouths _Frank_ under his breath, and blanches.

“Red,” Frank says, still glaring at his attackers.

“Why don’t you let me handle this?”

Frank scowls, but then he takes a deep breath and uncocks his pistol. He steps back slowly, keeping his guard up in case they get any ideas, but they seem properly cowed by the two vigilantes standing over them.

Frank hesitates a moment longer before nodding at Murdock. “Thanks,” he mutters. “I’ve got a friend at home who’s probably starting to get worried.” He feels Murdock’s eye roll and ignores it.

“Tell her I say hi,” Red says, just barely keeping the sigh out of his voice. Frank nods once more, scoops up his surprisingly unscathed bag of food, and heads home.

* * *

Karen opens the door before he manages to get his key in the lock.

“Hey, I was starting to wonder— oh my god, Frank, what happened?”

“I’m okay,” he mumbles as she pulls him inside. There’s a scrabbling sound as Iffy comes running at the sound of his voice, and there’s a chaotic few minutes of calming the dog and shoving the food into the oven so Iffy can’t get at it and then Karen is dragging him into the bathroom. He catches a glimpse of himself in the mirror and sighs — his eyes are already turning black and there’s a laceration across the bridge of his nose and he’s covered in what would be an alarming amount of blood to anyone who isn’t him.

Karen maneuvers him out of her way so she can dig around under the sink for his first aid kit. He takes the opportunity to remove his ruined shirt, wiping off as much blood as he can before tossing it in the hamper. When she finds the kit she moves over so he can get to the sink and waits while he washes his face and neck. He pokes at his nose a bit, gently trying to push the bones into some semblance of order, but it’s probably a lost cause, so he dries off and turns to lean back against the counter.

“So what happened?” Karen steps between his feet and dabs at the cut on his nose with some gauze, then reaches for the butterfly tape. His hands settle on her waist without him really thinking about it.

“I got mugged.”

She stares at him, her hands going still. “You what?”

“I don’t really want to talk about it,” he mutters.

“Mugged.”

“Well, they tried,” he says. “Two guys jumped me, got one lucky punch in,” he gestures at his nose, “but I took care of them.”

Karen ponders this for a moment, going back to patching him up. Her fingers are cool against his skin, and he suppresses a shiver of pleasure at the contact. “Are they...” she trails off, but he knows what she’s asking.

“Red took over,” he grumbles, trying not to sound too sullen about it. “He says hi, by the way.”

She laughs a little at his disgruntled tone, and runs her fingers over his beard when she’s done with the tape, and this time he can’t stop himself from trembling. She’s about to step away but he doesn’t let her go, one hand tightening on her waist and the other moving to her shoulder.

“Thank you,” he says, and she smiles at him, her eyes warm on his, and the moment stretches out and he doesn’t know which of them moves first but they both lean in and then he’s kissing her. She kind of sighs into him and he wraps his arms more firmly around her, one hand tangling in her hair. Her lips are warm under his, her kiss fierce and tender, and she slides her hands over his shoulders as she leans into him.

They press closer, and he tilts his head to deepen the kiss only to jerk back in surprised pain when Karen’s nose bumps his.

“Ow, fuck.”

“Shit, sorry,” she gasps. She pulls back and cups his face in her hands, her thumb grazing his cheekbone as she looks over his battered nose, biting her lip in concern.

“Not gonna let it stop me,” he says, kissing her again — more carefully this time. She laughs into him, the sound pure joy, and he grins against her mouth.

* * *

They take it slow — for about two weeks, and then that idea gets thrown out with the garbage where it belongs. By Christmas, they’re practically living together, splitting their time between their two apartments. Iffy is thrilled to have Karen around all the time (and so is Frank, though he wonders if he’s pushing too hard).

“Are we moving too fast?” Frank worries aloud one day, lying in bed with Karen in a cozy tangle of limbs and blankets. “Am I rushing you?”

She snorts sleepily, turning to press a kiss to the closest part of him — the underside of his jaw, just at the edge of his beard.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” she murmurs. “I’ve loved you for years, now, we’re just making up for lost time.”

He kisses her, slow and fervent, and buries his face in her neck, gathering her closer.

“What was that for?” She runs her fingers through his hair, pressing a kiss to his temple so he can feel the curve of her smile.

“I love you, too,” he says against her skin.

Before the pandemic hits, Frank decides it’s time to make it official. They’ve been living together for months and he’s sick of living in two places. He’s been following the news closely and is pretty sure some kind of quarantine is on the way in the next few weeks. He doesn’t want to have to worry about an empty apartment during a lockdown, and he really doesn’t want to be quarantined without Karen.

“Let’s move in together,” he says when they’re walking Iffy one evening. It’s cold out but overall the winter has been surprisingly mild, so they’ve bundled up to make sure Iffy gets enough exercise.

He has all his reasons thought out — first being that they love each other and he, at least, doesn’t want to spend any more time apart than necessary, but he also has practical reasons like saving money on rent, and not having all their stuff split between two places. He thinks they should keep his place, even though it’s a little smaller than hers, because it’s closer to her work and has central air and a better kitchen. He’s ready to make a reasonable case, to talk it over and give Karen time to think about it if she needs to, to take into account any reasons she might prefer to keep her apartment and change his own preference if needed.

So he’s thrown completely for a loop when she says, “okay, should we keep your place or mine?”

“Uh. Mine?”

She nods seriously. “Central air,” she says.

“Better kitchen,” he adds, and she smiles fondly. “And it’s closer to the NM&P office.”

“Good point,” she says.

This is going too easy. “Your place has more space,” he points out, wanting to make sure the discussion is fair.

“It’s not that much bigger,” Karen says. “And yours definitely has enough pros to outweigh that one con. And I didn’t renew my lease.” That last is said with a sly smile and a sideways glance.

Frank pulls her to a stop facing him. “You’re sneaky,” he accuses, but he can’t hide the grin spreading across his face. She smiles back, eyes soft on his.

“I was pretty sure you were getting around to asking,” she says, wrapping her arms around him. “I’m surprised you never found my moving to do list.” Frank snorts, amused.

“So, we’re doing this?”

She answers with a kiss.

**Author's Note:**

> Books mentioned/alluded to in this fic:
> 
> Sabriel is from the Old Kingdom series by Garth Nix  
> Deviana is from the Paradox trilogy by Rachel Bach  
> Lyra is from His Dark Materials trilogy by Philip Pullman  
> Iphigenia is from Mistress by Amanda Quick  
> And The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society is by Annie Barrows and Mary Ann Shaffer (I haven’t read it but the movie is SO SWEET)(also I headcanon that Frank doesn’t like action movies)


End file.
